With an ocean of time and freedom following a completed album-release, a new idea began to develop.
I was longing for some sort of collaboration, to make music with others without a clearly defined
goal, lock myself in a rehearsal room and let the music evolve over time. I was in between apartments
in New York, without a place to call my own, so I decided to go to Rio de Janeiro, bring my guitar
and start playing around with new song-ideas. I found an aparment close to Ipanema and stayed there
for roughly a month. Wrote, ran, swam, wrote, swam and ran. Came back with new sketches I decided
to call All The Way to Rio.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m on a short visit to Sweden. A friend of mine tips me off on
an empty garage with lots of headroom, on the outskirts of town. I drop by and decide to sign the lease.
I start painting and decorating, and the garage turns into a rehearsal space. Inspiration starts to flow.

FUCK OFF

I call a bunch of amazing Stockholm-based musicians who I’ve always wanted to work with. We meet
up at the Pelikan Restaurant and I explain what I’ve got in mind. I want us to write, rehearse and produce
together; at the end of the summer we’ll record what we’ve done. Everyone wants in.

Summer passes, and we rehearse, work on my song-sketches from Rio, as well as some new ideas
together. The last week of august I book some time with Janne at Atlantis Studio at Karlbergsvägen
in Stockholm. After 10 days of recording we had hours of music and total chaos. At this point I’d
like to say that everything was easy and wonderful. I didn’t have a damn clue where it would land.
I was tired, everyone was tired. The mood was up and down in the studio, it’s always difficult when
you can’t find a direction. There was a certain tension to the songs, but they didn’t go anywhere, felt
like they were standing still, like a musical painting. The summer was drawing towards it’s end and
the whole project was put on hold.

I shut down the garage, got rid of all the stuff and left Sweden.

PANIC

Time flies...

THE WORK BEGINS WHILE CRYING

I start working on a new solo-album with my old brother in arms, Andreas Dahlbäck. Have to reload,
recharge, forget the garage and the energy that imploded during the Atlantis sessions. I tell Andreas
about the music that I buried on my computer’s hard-drive. He’s curious and wants to give it a listen.

It sounds better than I recall. Many great parts, but it needs cleaning up, editing and to become clearer.
Working with Andreas, I return to the music and do more work on the songs. It’s far from complete,
but the paralysis that has surrounded the project starts to let go of it’s grip.

DEADLINE

Last autumn, I met Jacob Fällender in New York. He showed me a selection of his photography at
Sotheby’s, told me about his process. He was in the middle of a new project in which he took pictures
of mountains in the Himalaya. The images he showed me had an amazing atmosphere; dark, quiet and
dramatic all at once. We spoke afterwards and he asked me if I had any new music to share. Without
any after-thoughts, I sent him a preview of All the way to Rio. I felt our worlds met, and Jacob felt the
same after listening. We decided to stay in touch, share our work during the coming year. He finished
his photography with my music in his ears, and my record was completed with his images on my retina.

Jacob’s images were the last piece of the puzzle needed for the music to find a home. A dark, dreamy,
idle pop still-life painting.